Wasn't going to play but I changed my mind. Amazing what a few glasses of red will do.

Way, way back in 2012 I entered "The Blank Wall" into the "V5 Intro Comp" organized by Po. Prune and it won! Strangely enough this was a competition for Intro games written in V5 (no more than 4 rooms I seem to remember).

The game was about a serial killer who vanished after killing his last victim (who just happened to be the woman you love). Everyone else gives up hope of him ever being found again. But, after staking out one of his murder sites he surfaces again. You following him to an old abandoned station and the Intro is based at the station. In the full game you must track him down and bring him to justice.

Over the next couple of years or so I flesh out the game, had it play tested and basically got it to that nearly finished state. My plan was to enter it into the next mainline SpringThing.

What happened? I fell out of love with ADRIFT. I like V5 but it has been abandoned, the runner only really works on Windows, a flaky online system, hardly any activity of the forum etc etc. Hence why I jumped ship and entered a game a Inform7 game into the IF Comp 2017. The trouble is it took me about 3 years to write the I7 game, against around 6 months plus testing for my ADRIFT IF Comp entries.

The0didactus wrote:That's a titanic game to be sure. Bigger than anything I've ever made.

My plan always was to make it a large game. It is broken down into six sections to explore, solving each before moving on. The railway station in the Intro was the first section. I have to admit I've been tempted a few times to rewrite it in I7.

Currently working on "The Blank Wall" in ADRIFT 5 and "Again and Again" in Inform 7.Delron, the home of Otter Interactive Fiction.

P/o Prune wrote:I was one of the guys testing this game and I must say that it has been one of the best games I've played.

Thanks! You certainly did help with the testing along with a couple of other people. As I said the game was virtually finished. I've been working on the game, so that is one thing this thread has done.

Currently working on "The Blank Wall" in ADRIFT 5 and "Again and Again" in Inform 7.Delron, the home of Otter Interactive Fiction.

David Whyld wrote:EDIT: And that is one monster of a game. Even taking into account v5 games being 40% bigger than v4 games, that will probably be the biggest ADRIFT game ever written by the time it's finished.

EDIT: and that's what is deeply disheartening to me , because Skybreak will probably be 800k-900k when it's finished (just over 1000 with the single opening image) and I've been boasting that Skybreak will probably be the biggest ADRIFT game, but that seems untrue given the trajectory of this project. Skybreak has more rooms, but you've got me beat on characters AND tasks AND variables (which is utterly INSANE given the number of random little tasks in skybreak).

I once compiled a list of the sizes of all ADRIFT games and the top 10 at the time were:

1. 530 Consequences by David Whyld2. 525 Sophie's Adventure by David Whyld3. 377 The PK Girl by Hanadorobou4. 296 Options by David Whyld5. 241 City In Fear by David Whyld6. 231 Private Eye by David Whyld7. 215 British Fox And The Celebrity Abductions by Lucilla Frost8. 213 The Warlord, The Princess & The Bulldog by David Whyld9. 196 The Reluctant Vampire by David Whyld10. 165 O.N.N.A.F.A. by David Whyld

That list is from 2007 so it's wildly out of date now, but it's still a good indicator of how big some games were back then. They're all v4 games and I know from a few tests I once ran that v5 games are on average about 40% bigger. Written in v5, the biggest of the games - Consequences - would be 742kb. I know Lazzah's games are pretty big and some by BBBen are huge as well, but I'm not sure if they all include sound and / or graphics, which have a tendency to inflate game sizes. Assuming none of them are more than 836kb, I think it's fair to say that Rotter's game will be the biggest ADRIFT game of them all when it's finally released.

David Whyld wrote:I once compiled a list of the sizes of all ADRIFT games and the top 10 at the time were:

1. 530 Consequences by David Whyld2. 525 Sophie's Adventure by David Whyld3. 377 The PK Girl by Hanadorobou4. 296 Options by David Whyld5. 241 City In Fear by David Whyld6. 231 Private Eye by David Whyld7. 215 British Fox And The Celebrity Abductions by Lucilla Frost8. 213 The Warlord, The Princess & The Bulldog by David Whyld9. 196 The Reluctant Vampire by David Whyld10. 165 O.N.N.A.F.A. by David Whyld

That list is from 2007 so it's wildly out of date now, but it's still a good indicator of how big some games were back then. They're all v4 games and I know from a few tests I once ran that v5 games are on average about 40% bigger. Written in v5, the biggest of the games - Consequences - would be 742kb. I know Lazzah's games are pretty big and some by BBBen are huge as well, but I'm not sure if they all include sound and / or graphics, which have a tendency to inflate game sizes. Assuming none of them are more than 836kb, I think it's fair to say that Rotter's game will be the biggest ADRIFT game of them all when it's finally released.

Until then, I think I still have bragging rights

iirc Tingalan has more than 500kb of pure "adrift", but with the sound and text included it's more than 10MB. The Dead of Winter, which was made over 24 work-hours (spread over 2 days) is 76kb, which I submit as some sort of recordbut there is definitely no way I'm going to be able to make a game bigger than this one.

Quite a few of the characters are actually dead bodies. Lot of murders in this game. The number of tasks and variables has got a bit silly, I guess I could probably have done a few things smarter. Until I did the stats I had no idea of the size of the thing. Crazy really.

Currently working on "The Blank Wall" in ADRIFT 5 and "Again and Again" in Inform 7.Delron, the home of Otter Interactive Fiction.

I've been thinking the same thing. It makes a refreshing change to see some actual game discussion on this forum and I find myself more interested in ADRIFT than I have been in years. Let's hope it continues.